Rather than playing him in the position which he occupied most for Torino, Massimiliano Allegri will change Samuele Ricci’s game a little at AC Milan.
With Tijjani Reijnders’ sale, Milan have been offered a bit more flexibility in the market, especially when it comes to reshaping the midfield. Like when Sandro Tonali was sold, the midfield will be given a facelift.
Reijnders was the big coup, looking back on that summer, and Ricci could be this edition’s, though there are still attempts being made to sign Ardon Jashari. Together, they could be the new jewels of this Rossoneri.
Allegri’s idea
Allegri’s plan is exactly that, according to La Repubblica this morning (via Milan Press). To complete the midfield department, Jashari will join Ricci, Luka Modric, Youssouf Fofana, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Warren Bondo.
Plenty of coverage and quality is within these ranks, and now clarification must arrive about the plans for the midfield. All cannot play at once.
It has previously been reported that Allegri sees Modric as the base of the midfield, to keep things ticking like a metronome. However, this is the position which Ricci has most commonly occupied with Torino.
Instead of being the ‘director’ of the midfield, though, the Italian will take up a role as a mezzala, according to the report. He is not unfamiliar with this role, as stats from Transfermarkt show, and Allegri believes it will elevate his and Milan’s game to utilise him in this way.
so Ricci (Bondo being his direct sub) would act like Gatusso protecting the deep-lying playmaker… hope Modric can mentor Fofana (I don’t think that Frenchman ever reaches Luka’s level, but on paper it seems that that’s what Fofana’s role gonna be)
No fofana can’t be deep laying playmaker if anything he can be a protector
Fofana’s passes are always not good when going forward, but i do like Bondo, he is good. He will surprise many
I think having more options in midfield will help his distribution and diminish his necessity to hold and move with the ball. Ricci and Modric positional play are sound, having Pulisic or Leao overloading the middle can also be of help to simplify his passing options to create more fluid ball movement. Given Theo is leaving, that will make the left side more predictable for coverage, easier to block out so that may become an issue. That will make it easier to put pressure on the left side midfielder and to zonally cover the right hand side of our attack. I see Pulisic’s numbers significantly dropping this year and Rafa being even more isolated from games. Puli benefited from Tijjani, Theo and Leao opening his flank and drawing coverage for him to have more free spacre in central positions or to overload the opposing flank. Gimenez will need to be even more involved in the build up as well with our left side having less speed and technical offensive talent. Theo dropped significantly when we started playing inverted fullbacks with Pioli and then with the Portuguese coaches being more conservative. It will be critical to have everyone at training camp ready to go because we can’t afford mid August acquisitions with such important turnovers. Tijjani and Theo gone really will shift the balance of our squad, significantly limits our attacking prospects. Our coaches misutilized our best players and our transfer campaigns were brutal, lacking any cohesion. The middle of the park will be more pivotal now than ever. Because we lost big assets.